Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Survivals, from Seth

Survivals, from Seth

Maybe I’m just noticing better due to our
collaborative blogging effort with Jeff Angus on finding and eliminating "survivals".

Enter
Seth Godin, one of the best marketing thinkers around, who blogs yesterday on survivals in on-line shopping carts. Yeah, survivals don’t have to be old to be real.

His point is how awfully persistent these things can be. Note how his example also shows up in our “interruption of flow” tool to find them.

Enjoy Seth’s excellent writing.



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Monday, February 14, 2005

Three steps to find “what stops flow”

Three steps to find “what stops flow”

Continuing with the small
collaborative blogging effort with Jeff Angus on finding and eliminating "survivals". I wrote last time about looking for “what stops flow” and gave a couple of examples.

Here’s what I look for when I ask “what stops flow”.

· Where are piles? A pile is nothing more than a point where flow is stopped. A dam that causes water to back up. Piles mean there is no flow…work is just stacked. Why is the pile there? Why is it at this machine, at this workstation? What keeps it from flowing through this machine?
· Who’s waiting on whom? Who is on others’ mind when a slowdown happens? What name keeps popping up? What name triggers an “eye roll”? Why, then, does this name keep popping up?
· Who or what is the demanded asset? Who is it that needs to make the decision? What machine or software is most coveted? Who’s vacation schedule dictates what gets done?

In answering these questions, you will begin to isolate where flow stops. And when you find this, you can then ask “Why does flow stop here?” And you will likely find survivals there.

Try it. It gets scary, believe me. Because it will unearth some very useful trails to follow.

I hope this is helpful.



Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

Friday, February 04, 2005

What do you do when a blizzard creates chaos?

What do you do when a blizzard creates chaos?

 

Here's a great story of customer service from the recent blizzard in Boston, courtesy of Kevin Weiss, who writes Take Ten Minutes.  The key paragraph here:

 

The gesture was appreciated, but the real test of a company isn't how well it apologizes for errors, it's what it does to eliminate them.  In the aftermath of a service failure, organizations must choose between two distinct paths.  One is to see problems as a result of rare events, unforeseen circumstances, and issues beyond control.  The other is to accept responsibility for the entirety of the situation and own every failure.  Companies that choose the first path repeat their mistakes; companies that choose the second prevent problems from recurring and discover ways to mitigate "acts of god".

 

This issue of accountability is huge.  Who makes apologies?  Who accepts the idea that prevention is better than apology?

 

It is a substantial shift in thinking.  It challenges me, I hope it does you as well. 

 

I hope this is helpful.

 

 

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Finding "survivals"

Finding "survivals"

 

Jeff Angus and I are doing some collaborative blogging on finding and eliminating "survivals", those invisible steps that impede your company and mine.  How do we find them? 

 

Here's a key question that I have found to regularly unearth these nasty little critters:

 

What stops flow?

 

In any manufacturing or process sequence, any machine, procedure or person that stops the flow of product is a possible (likely) seedbed of one of these survivals.  So, by looking for yourself and observing where flow stops, you will find them.  Probably more than you expect. 

 

Example one: My colleague Misty observed that she had been making a particular annotation on all checks we cut to vendors.  And it disrupted flow.  It had to be added onto the check after it had been approved. And she observed that we never used this particular annotation.  And, further, she discovered that the information it conveyed was already in our financial system.  It disrupted flow.  It added no value.  And, correctly, she said "Joe, why on earth do we do this?"  We eliminated it. 

 

She saw it because it disrupted flow.

 

Example two:  A local engineer whom I met through a network told me of a sheet-metal process she observed in her plant.  It seems that the process involved taking a large sheet of steel, running it through a metal shear to cut it into smaller blanks, then placing these blanks into a press, where a die cut the final shape of the part.  The final part was still flat.  Amy observed that the first cutting step seemed to disrupt flow.  So she asked one of the operators "Why do you cut that blank?"  Predictably, she learned "Because we've always done it that way."  Looking at the press, Amy then asked, "So why couldn't we just put the full sheet directly into the press and skip the blanking step?"  In this instance, there were no physical barriers to this happening safely. 

 

It turns out, the part was originally prototyped with a much more labor-intensive cutting process, not using the press at all.  Thus, the early blanking made the metal much easier to handle by an individual associate. When they installed the die, the old habit still stuck around. 

 

Amy drove the change to eliminate the blanking.  Not without some real grief and pushback.  But, she persevered and got it changed, saving a lot of hassle and eliminating one flow disruption. 

 

She saw it because it disrupted flow. 

 

Take a look for flow-stoppers in your operation.  And see if there isn't some survival in the way, a non-value-adding step that you can eliminate.  Now. 

 

I hope this is helpful.